Gemotions

My breath hitched as I stared at the teacher roster. Mr. Finch. My own fourth-grade teacher. The one who always made me feel like an utter failure. A flush of heat crept up my neck, and I fidgeted, unable to keep still.

I pictured the classroom, the smell of chalk dust, the rigid structure. My stomach twisted. I wanted to call my own mother, tell her to fix it, to somehow change the assignment. I felt a deep, unsettling unrest, a feeling that a piece of my past was about to repeat itself.